Man raises more than $11,000 on Kickstarter to make potato salad

One man raised more than $11,000 to make a single batch of potato salad on the Kickstarter crowd-funded website.

One man raised more than $11,000 to make a single batch of potato salad on the Kickstarter crowd-funded website. (Kirk McKoy / Los Angeles Times)

Jenn Harris

Man raises more than $11,000 to make a single batch of potato salad

Potato salad is the quintessential backyard barbecue side dish. An average batch costs around $10 to make, with mayonnaise, potatoes, celery and spices all relatively cheap to buy. So how much potato salad could one make with $11,000?

That's a question Ohio resident Zack Danger Brown may be asking himself after raising more than $11,000 to make a single batch of potato salad.

Brown, whose real middle name is Danger, started a campaign to fund a batch of potato salad on the crowd-funding site Kickstarter just before the Fourth of July holiday. He asked for $10, and in just five days, he raised more than $11,200 and has more than 1,500 backers.

"I didn't think it was ever going to blow up this big," Brown told ABC. "I thought I've never made potato salad, so I should try making some potato salad."

After reaching his original $10 goal, Brown set additional stretch goals of $35 to make four batches, then $75 for a pizza party and $100 to make two different types of potato salad. Once he met those goals, he set new ones to use better mayonnaise ($250), pay someone to film a thank-you video for all of his backers ($1,200) and eventually rent out a party hall and invite the "whole internet" to a potato salad party ($3,000).

Brown is far from a potato salad expert, but says he likes "the yellow one." Since the campaign started, Brown claims he's received tweets from all over the world, including Japan, Norway and France.

Who knew potato salad could be this big? Then again, if you think back to Noboru Bitoy, the artist who raised more than $1,000 to try a Chipotle chicken burrito, then skydive with it, anything can happen.

Cheers, Brown. May you end up making the best potato salad the world has ever seen. And if you're still looking for some recipes to try, here are a couple from the L.A. Times Test Kitchen.